The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) November 5, 2024.
Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #120.
Reader: Hello, we should be reading the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, continuing from Item 120. You can find the text in the writings of Baal HaSulam as well as on kabbalahmedia.info as well as through the Arvut platform where you can send us questions. Anyone asking a question here in the study hall is requested to stand up, hold the microphone close to his mouth, and to speak loudly and clearly.
Now, the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 120.
Reading: (00:43) Item 120 This is what Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, says: “Since the world is judged by its majority and the individual is judged by its majority,” and since he relates to the whole world, he cannot speak like the first Tanna, that he should regard them as half guilty half innocent, as this degree comes to a person only when he is granted the disclosure of the face and repentance from fear. Thus, how is this said about the whole world, when they have not been granted this repentance? For this reason, one must only say that the world is judged by its majority, and the individual is judged by its majority.
Explanation: One might think that one does not become a complete righteous, except when he has no transgressions and has never sinned. But those who failed with sins and transgressions no longer merit becoming complete righteous.
For this reason, Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, teaches us that this is not so. Rather, the world is judged by its majority and so is the individual. This means that after one has emerged from being medium, after he has repented from fear, he is immediately rewarded with the 613 Mitzvot and is called “medium,” meaning half his years guilty, and in half his years innocent. Afterward, if one adds but a single Mitzva, the Mitzva of love, it is considered that he is mostly innocent and sentences everything to the side of merit. Thus, the side of faults becomes merits, too, as in the words of the first Tanna.
It turns out that even if one has a cup full of iniquities and sins, they all become merits for him. Then, he is as one who never sinned and is considered “complete righteous.” This is the meaning of the saying that the world and the individual are judged by the majority. Thus, the transgressions in his hand from before the repentance are not taken into consideration whatsoever for they have become merits. Accordingly, even “complete wicked” are considered “complete righteous” once they are granted repentance from love.
M. Laitman: Questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:37) It's such a lofty degree he speaks of. It's difficult to imagine but, on such a degree, I'll ask. I don't know if it…does the person simply love the whole of humanity, everyone, equally in the same way as he loves the Creator as he sees that everything is for the best, and as far as he's concerned, the most cruel person, as well as the…he justifies the actions of everyone. It's such a high degree that he depicts here where the person sees no evil in the world whatsoever and everyone has done only good.
M. Laitman: Yes, it's because of the upper light that shines on him. You can't, you can't think or see otherwise.
Student: It's the complete opposite of what his will to receive depicts for him, by its nature. It sounds like such a wonderful, sublime degree.
M. Laitman: That's all there is.
Student: But, really until we get there you could say that the correction is not finalized.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's truly inconceivable.
M. Laitman: It’s what we’ll see soon, soon enough.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:15) Why is the world judged by the majority? If you take someone broken, you take him and you say, you're corrupted, let's judge you. You need to judge him in comparison to something else but if there's a…if he's like a worm inside a rotten apple, he doesn't know anything, you tell him, you're corrupted and you blame him and you judge him according to the majority. What's the logic here?
M. Laitman: These are the laws the Creator arranged before the creation and there's nothing to say, nothing to do. We'll come closer to them and maybe we'll discuss them differently.
Student: What should we learn from this, from this outlook?
M. Laitman: Just like he writes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:29) The world is judged by its majority. What is the majority?
M. Laitman: The majority of the world. I can't say it any other way.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:59) He writes about an intermediate stage where half his actions are merits and the other half are transgressions, half innocent, half guilty, that intermediary state. Does it describe a moment in his spiritual advancement where he's come to this half and half state?
M. Laitman: It sounds like that.
Student: It's not a state that happens on every degree? It happens once?
M. Laitman: I think.
Student: It happens once?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And after he adds the commandment of love, he starts sentencing?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And then, what is his work? As intermediate, he has room to add?
M. Laitman: Then he tries to add.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:02) What he says here is that he reaches half his years, meaning he's half and half. He doesn't have the ability to sentence yet. And then the world, that's his worldview, how he perceives the world. Is that what he means by the word world?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Then he chooses love and this is the sentencing? He came out of that state of half and half, and now he has more, but it happens now and in five minutes it can turn around, right? He says he shouldn't believe in himself until the day he dies. So it describes states. It's not a final state and that's it.
M. Laitman: No, we'll be in the final state.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:56) When he begins this process of repentance from fear, then that's opposite to how much he feels guilty. Corresponding to that he knows how much he has to compensate. When he concludes the state of the intermediate, then he's still half guilty, half innocent. He writes here that he comes out of the degree of the intermediate after repenting from fear and then immediately is rewarded with the 613 commandments and becomes intermediate, meaning half his year is innocent, half his year is guilty. So, he did not compensate for the guilt, every state of guilt?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Only opposite the state where he's guilty, he understands how much he has to compensate still?
M. Laitman: You can think this way.
Student: And then when he leaves the state of the intermediate, it says, what is the one commandment? We know you have to go through all the states and make a correction for each and every state. What does it mean, one commandment?
M. Laitman: One commandment is a commandment of love.
Student: But how does he reach it all at once, the moment he leaves the degree of the intermediate?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And that immediately covers everything?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:08) We say that there's no righteous one who hasn't sinned but here he says that those who failed with sins and transgressions are no longer worthy of being completely righteous. So, what is one who is completely righteous? We say that there's no righteous person who doesn't sin but he's very harsh here. He says that if you sin once, that's it. So what is the one who's completely righteous?
M. Laitman: We'll hear a definition of that later.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:53) What should the person sentence about? In what?
M. Laitman: He should…it's when he is in love of the Creator.
Student: And how can it be measured? How can a person measure if he's performing sins or commandments, merits?
M. Laitman: The extent to which he can sentence his states to the scale of merits.
Student: It's the person who determines what the transgressions and what the merits are?
M. Laitman: He tries.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:59) I wanted to ask what is repentance from fear and what is repentance from love?
M. Laitman: He decides, The Creator is The Good That Does Good to the bad and to the good and this is repentance out of love. But there are things that are not, that are the other way around.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:50) He writes that even if one has a cup full of sins and transgressions, it all becomes merits and he's like one who's never sinned and he's considered completely righteous. So the sins and transgressions which all become merits, what happens in this process? Do they remain there as some kind of something to measure the merits against or does he discover that they never existed, ever? They simply vanish and all become merits?
M. Laitman: No, they stay in order to measure the upcoming degrees relative to them.
Student: So what is the addition? He says that he added love and so then the sins and transgressions become merits. So what is this love, this component which now with respect to the sins and transgressions, they all seem as merits?
M. Laitman: It's attitude. Everything is attitude.
Student: What does he discover when suddenly everything becomes merits?
M. Laitman: He discovers that the Creator never did anything bad to him.
Student: Can you maybe give some kind of example? He felt bad, right? The Creator did bad things to him. He acted badly towards others. Others acted badly towards him. Everything was bad?
M. Laitman: Maybe.
Student: And then he adds love towards the creations and the Creator and what does he discover then? That everything that seemed bad to him before was all good?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Because what didn't he understand? Why didn't he see it before?
M. Laitman: Because of his qualities. He wasn't in the quality of love.
Student: And now that he's in the quality of love, he discovers that?
M. Laitman: The Creator loves him.
Student: Loves him and he simply didn't understand Him correctly?
M. Laitman: Seemingly, yes.
Student: Is there any kind of explanation that can be considered reasonable, within reason?
M. Laitman: Why can’t it be within reason?
Student: Let's say a criminal in this world, when I reveal love towards him, he's still a criminal. He still committed a felony.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So his felony is crime. I discover that he did what?
M. Laitman: He did it. It's on him.
Student: It's on him. So how come it becomes a merit for him? How can that be?
M. Laitman: How did transgressions become merits?
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: Because he did not relate properly to them. He thought that it was up to him. Indeed, it was up to the Creator alone.
Student: So it turns out that there was a transgression but the Creator…
M. Laitman: No, no, there's no transgression. The transgression he performed is not a transgression. It's simply the line that the Creator used to bring him into that. He didn't make any transgressions.
Student: He did not transgress but the reality, the existence of the transgression, did it happen in reality?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So if it's completely revoked, then there's nothing to compare it against?
M. Laitman: You could say.
Student: So it has no meaning?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So what is the meaning of the transgressions? They have to be there as a kind of reference point when they turn into merits?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's not so clear. You say that it can be explained within reason?
M. Laitman: That's relative to the sentencing decision of a person. He sentences himself and the entire world to a scale of merit.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:06) When we say that He's The Good That Does Good, we're referring to the points in the heart, right? The souls, not the bodies?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And all of our complaints, when we say that the Creator is evil, that's because of the horrors we see happening to our bodies?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Alright, so how to develop a healthy approach towards this, us and also how we're viewed because if we don't relate to these passing bodies, transitory bodies, then we see throughout the whole process how the Creator is the good who does good. But, on the other hand, we can be a bit weirdos, right? And just appear as weirdos, just saying that, He’s Good That Does Good to bodies, whatever, doesn't matter. So how can we present this correctly, explain it correctly, to ourselves and also to others?
M. Laitman: We need to see what's written and try to relate to things this way.
Student: You see how you see things, how the Kabbalists see things. There are quotes by Baal HaSulam, saying that it's all points in the heart, points in the heart and the generations come and go. The bodies just keep dying and passing on, right? But it seems, it's very frightening to just deliver that message fully, it sounds very detached.
M. Laitman: Gradually. Gradually.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:46) Continuing this scrutiny, I want to understand, what's corrected is only the attitude you said, the intention. So it becomes clear then, what's revealed then, is that behind all these actions which we saw as bad and terrible, the intention was good. So it follows that the intention overcomes the act itself, right? It qualifies it, it refines it. When I see horrors today, I have no way of judging them because I don't know the intention behind everything that happens. So the question is, what's being revealed to us? The Creator's intention? Can we say that?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How can you even attain the Creator's intention? We hear that He's The Good That Does Good, the thought of creation is to benefit His creatures but can you actually feel it? Is that possible?
M. Laitman: We need to resemble that.
Student: So to want that, yes? But in practice, can we attain it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:09) In the first article, in Shamati, Baal HaSulam says that even if a person ascribes something to the Sitra Achra, he's already considered an annihilator. And if he thinks he himself made a mistake, that's also a sin, a transgression. So if we try to understand it logically, if you ascribe everything to the Creator, then of course there's no transgression. So the question is, before he perceived the world with transgressions in it, how does that beget love?
M. Laitman: To the extent that he discovers that all the steps that he took all came from the Creator as a result of His love. So in spite of that, the Creator corrects him, cooks him, it's like you do on the pan when you sear something. That's how the Creator relates to us. He's preparing us for the complete correction.
Student: Yes, but how does that beget love? Him condemning the Creator and then maybe saying that if the substitute for the master beat him more, then it would have been better because he would have earned more. But it could have been a state of indifference if we were one with the Creator but here we're born separate. We find that we're the opposite of Him. We condemn Him completely and then from that we come to love. How does this whole process beget the feeling of love?
M. Laitman: It comes to us as a summary of the process that we're going through, that the Creator prepared in advance and the way He created us and He seemingly took the suffering upon Himself and through Him, He passed us into love.
Student: Now, because each one goes through this his own way, how can we say that everyone ultimately is equal in the love of the Creator?
M. Laitman: Because the vessels are incorporated in one another. That's why it turns out that everyone has the same will to receive, the same depth, with the same qualities, and the same corrections.
Student: Do we see people condemning more and condemning less, according to their nature even?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Ultimately, everyone loves the same, right, because of this incorporation we're talking about?
M. Laitman: Yes. Yes, because of the incorporation.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:09) I heard before that in order to discover that the Creator is loving, the person himself needs to be loving. Why is that a condition?
M. Laitman: How else will he understand what it is? He needs to enter the same kind of measuring. When he measures, he is measured.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:47) It seems that when he writes in the Tana Kama, he writes that the person should see that it's as if this and that. So everything depends on how a person perceives reality, right? He should see that the Creator is the good who does good. A person has this force of imagination he can control and he's being advised how to see reality, not with these eyes, this is with the will to receive, but just see it in a different way. Does a person have some switch? He can just switch on and off to toggle how he perceives the world because I feel cold, heat. I feel good, bad. I have worries. I have a very clear diagnosis of my state but here he says, no, you need to see half of them as good, as bad, yourself as half righteous, and so on. That recommendation for me to see something. How can you change…what, should I lie to myself, that I'm seeing everything good? What is that change that allows the person to see what's written in the book and not what he sees with his own eyes?
M. Laitman: So it all comes to him only through the incorporation, the incorporation with the friends. So, with that, it turns out that he acquires the general perception.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:41) A Kabbalist who completes this process, who sentences the whole world to the scale of merit, how does he influence the rest of the society and their advancements throughout this process? Even let's say a friend in the Ten who completes this process, how does he promote, other than him perceiving reality differently, seeing everything with love?
M. Laitman: Relative to himself, of course, it's happening, and relative to others, I don't think they recognize it. They have no vessels, that's it.
Student: Okay, they don't recognize it, they have no vessels, but he's there, right? Does he help them also advance in this process, somehow?
M. Laitman: It prepares them.
Student: So that's on the level of the Ten, and let's say here, on the level of the group, with our friends who reach this kind of attainment in the future, let's say. How do we, Bnei Baruch, influence the whole world?
M. Laitman: I don't know, I cannot say.
Student: But the purpose of our work is to expand and influence, bestow upon the world, right?
M. Laitman: Yes, but if you're not ready, how can you ask this way? How can you ask this way, if they're not ready?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:26) What is a sin, a sin on the path? What is a sin, when I commit a sin?
M. Laitman: A person sins when, in some instance, he doesn't think that it comes from the Creator, that it's not the Creator who determines the status, The Good Who Does Good for the bad and for the good, but that it comes from some other side.
Student: What is the other side?
M. Laitman: Some calculation that a person is making, something, the way the world is doing something, that it exists and it expresses its general desire this way.
Student: And is there a difference between sin and transgression? We also talk about transgressions, so what is the difference between a sin and a transgression?
M. Laitman: A transgression, when a person transgresses, it's possible he's not even aware of it. A sin is when there's a prohibition before him and he nevertheless breaks it.
Student: The Creator shows us our corruptions throughout the path, in the connection between us, our attitudes towards each other. Now when He shows me my corruption, what should I do with that? I should ask Him to fix me? If I don't ask for this correction, is that a sin or a transgression?
M. Laitman: If you're not asking for the correction, it's really a transgression.
Student: But, I do this knowingly. I understand that I'm corrupted and the Creator is giving me an opportunity to correct this, and I don't do it, I don't ask it of Him.
M. Laitman: Then you didn't relate correctly to the state.
Student: I didn't relate to it correctly but if I discover, through the connection between us, I see that I'm not on the right track. I don't see the friends as I should see them. I'm not yet loving. The Creator gives me an opportunity to ascribe this to the Creator and to give me an opportunity to correct myself through Him and I don't do it. So again I ask, is that a transgression or a sin?
M. Laitman: A sin is when it's clear to a person that he is in the will to receive and he is using it. A transgression, it's possible that he transgresses against the desire, the will of the upper one and later repents.
Student: So, I had a few opportunities where I didn't make a correction, but after a few opportunities, I feel that that's it, I have to ask the Creator for this correction. What happens then? After several times, I didn't do what I had to do and then I did what I did. How should I feel now, how should I change my attitude, how does my attitude change?
M. Laitman: It changes from above.
Student: And in that state, do I draw the light after not having done anything several times and then ultimately doing something?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (36:18) What is the role of incorporation? How does it help a person reach love?
M. Laitman: Through the incorporation with his friends, a person comes to love, to a connection, this great correction.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (37:04) If you take water, you can turn it into ice, then back to a liquid, to a gas. So, what's the difference between crimes, sins, mistakes, if it all comes from the ego, it's all the same, it doesn't matter how it manifests, it's the ego, different facets, different shapes.
M. Laitman: This depends on a person, on how he feels it. It passes through him, therefore it's important to him.
Student: It's important to the person, but what's important with respect to the ultimate goal, the upper goal? What does it matter if he chose this, or this, or that? What does he do? Each time there's something else that's still out of the ego.
M. Laitman: This speaks of the degree of the person, of his state.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:16) The Creator shines a light on the person, raises him, and the person is annulled as a candle before a flame, a torch. The Creator ascends him, and he's in a state called half innocent, half guilty. Why does the Creator stop there?
M. Laitman: Why does He stop there?
Student: He stopped there, He didn't bring him to the full correction of the light. I'm canceled, annulled as a candle before the torch, then it's the light of infinity. What's the reason the Creator doesn't elevate me to the end of correction but rather is stopping in this place called the place of choice, half innocent, half guilty? The person knows that everything was done by the Creator up to this point, it was all part of the plan, he never sinned, he never transgressed, but why does He stop there? Why did the Creator stop the act there? He enters a kind of balance, and the person is hanging in that spot, in that place. Why does He stop there?
M. Laitman: The Creator doesn't want to show a person all the circumstances but only what belongs to the correction for the time being. That's how He opens His Providence to a person.
Student: In that place, the Creator put the person in the place of choice. What should a person look for to allow him to again start moving towards the end of correction? What is the reason for which he continues moving? He calls it repenting out of fear. And from here you get repentance from love. It was repentance from fear thus far, and from here on, it's repentance from love. So, what does a person look for in that new reality that causes him to start marching towards repentance from love?
M. Laitman: He has to continue. Continue. Keep quiet and continue.
Student: To be quiet and continue?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Turkiye 8): (41:25) What should a person do to acquire the quality of love?
M. Laitman: You need to be higher than his ego, above his ego. Open himself up to absorb all the friends. And in them also acquiring and absorbing the attitude of the Creator towards him.
Question (Woman Moscow 8): (42:06) What does it mean to be in the quality of love?
M. Laitman: I don't know. I don't know how to explain it.
Question (Latin 1): (42:24) Wicked and righteous, are those states or degrees on the path?
M. Laitman: It's both states and degrees.
Question (Asia): (42:39) This process, does it beget in us a need for equivalence of form?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Turkiye 7): (42:52) A person who sees that the Creator is Good, The Good Who Does Good, how does he reach the state of the prayer of the poor?
M. Laitman: Specifically because I see my state as me. I'm asking the Creator, I'm turning to the Creator, and I'm asking Him.
Question (Woman PT 8): (43:19) How can a person tell if he's transgressing against the upper will?
M. Laitman: Out of how it's clarified for him. They show it to him clearly.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (44:01) There's something that bothers me here greatly. In 120 he writes that this degree comes to a person only when he's awarded with the revelation of the face and repentance from fear. And how can he say this about the whole world, since they haven't merited this repentance?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He himself sees himself as completely righteous, repentance from fear. He sees himself 100%, right? And he's told, you can't see yourself at 100%. You need to see yourself as half owing, half guilty, and half innocent. So, if he reached all of the commandments, we're obligated to see all the friends as corrected and perfect. In here, it says that he did almost everything, 612 commandments, and also it's written that the person always discovers that he's the lowliest, the worst of everyone.
M. Laitman: But he does not make a decision relative to the whole world.
Student: So what does he have towards the world? How does he see them? On what degree?
M. Laitman: He sees them relatively corrected, but not everyone. And everyone is in the end of correction.
Student: So, he sees everyone at the end of correction?
M. Laitman: No. No.
Student: So how does he see them? It says that he doesn't see them in the completed perfect state.
M. Laitman: No. And that's what he needs to correct now.
Student: So the 612 commandments, how did they benefit him? What did they correct in him? If not, at least, how he relates to the friends or the other creations?
M. Laitman: All 613 Mitzvot (commandments) have brought him to a state where he now needs to carry out one single commandment.
Student: And this commandment, it follows from this, that it's a transition from individuality to the collective.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But in both cases, before that, he already has love towards the Creator. It's just that he doesn't see, and also he knows that the Creator treats him with absolute love, but he doesn't see that with respect to everyone else. So, the difference here in the last degree is to see that the Creator treats everyone that way. But in our work, we are asked to see the whole world, or at least the Ten, to see them in the perfected, corrected state, the highest state. So, what is the difference between trying to see them that way and achieving it, and having some measure of being able to sentence in that case?
M. Laitman: There is a difference. Either he corrected his view on them or not. Either he sees the Creator close in them, in everyone, or not yet.
Student: But that's his work from the first commandment, to see how the Creator is clothed in his Ten, let's say at least there. So he already did that. He was supposed to complete all the actions, but he hasn't completed the first action he's required to complete, to see how the Creator is clothed in the reality that's around him?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, I'm failing to connect what's written here, although conceptually it's clear, but to connect it to the work of the heart. I can't see how that combines the end and the beginning. How do we aim to begin with towards the highest thing that can be, the Creator clothing in the whole world, my entire world, wholly? And here it seems that this is the last stage in the end, that he reaches this only at the very, very end.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:10) Continuing with the scrutiny, he says that there's a difference between Rav Elazar and the Tanna Kama regarding half innocent, half guilty. He says that it means half his years, but we say that if there's the revelation of the face, he can't be half guilty, half innocent. Are there different degrees of the revelation of the face?
M. Laitman: There are different degrees in the revelation of the face.
Student: But the revelation of the face, is that not the final stage? The stage where you absolutely recognize that it's the Creator? Does it go away later? What does it mean that there are different stages?
M. Laitman: It depends relative to which soul are we discussing.
Student: So, the dispute between Tanna Kama and Rabbi Alazar, one seeing half guilty, one half innocent, even if he corrected all of these 612 commandments, he still misses one. So he still sees himself as… I guess there are seven more commandments, but he corrected the majority. He repented from fear, he has the revelation of the face here. And they say, no, it's not a proper state, a correct state. How to relate to that? How to relate to this and to that?
M. Laitman: I understand you. I don't know, we have to think about it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:53) There are mistakes, transgressions, sins. Is that the revelation of the coarseness or the intention of the person?
M. Laitman: It's according to the revelation of the coarseness.
Student: It's not according to the intention?
M. Laitman: With us, it is revealed as intention.
Student: So, if I have no intention that is a transgression, but if it's with intention, it's called a sin or mistakes?
M. Laitman: Yes, it depends on the coarseness in the thought.
Student: The coarseness, isn't that the desire?
M. Laitman: Desire.
Student: So we're talking about the intention. There's desire and there's intention. Or maybe the intention determines the level of coarseness.
M. Laitman: The intention determines on which coarseness it is revealed.
Student: So it's not a matter of the quantity of the desire but the intention determines that?
M. Laitman: The level of the desire, the intensity. Power.
Student: Intensity of the desire.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (52:28) A person sentences the world to the side of merit, or being innocent, or owing.
M. Laitman: That's how they say.
Student: Am I also in this world? Does he influence me? That person who sentences?
M. Laitman: That sentences the whole world?
Student: Yes, if he performs a bad or good act, does it influence me? Others?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We know that what a person attains, he attains from having labored. Everything he receives, that he tastes, it comes only because he made an effort towards it. So here I have the question, I don't understand why I should ever receive something, merit anything, if it's my friend who exerted himself. I don't have the vessels. How can I gain it, taste it?
M. Laitman: No, if you didn't labor, how would you receive?
Student: So he can't sentence my world to the side of merit. So here I want to ask, how can he even influence me at all? The other person.
M. Laitman: Having some influence is one thing. It's a different thing. It's an example, prayer, all kinds of states.
Student: So, what is… we're talking about incorporation, Arvut, even mutual guarantee. So where does someone receive something from another, someone giving to others? It's a system?
M. Laitman: Yes, but we don't know, we don't understand, don't feel the system.
Student: I need to have this relation with a friend. Let me ask this. In order for my friend to receive something that I exerted for him, let's take two friends. I exert myself, right? Then I have a kind of attitude, a certain attitude towards a friend. I work with him together, we incorporate, and with another friend I don't have the same thing. Will both be affected the same by my acts?
M. Laitman: Of course not.
Student: So it means that in the Ten, there should be a condition of incorporation so that if one person does something, the other friends receive or maybe even lose out?
M. Laitman: Perhaps.
Student: Is it also connected to how the people of Israel influence the world the same way?
M. Laitman: There's something to it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:58) It is known that self-realization is proper use of the will, meaning to receive with the intention to bestow contentment upon one's maker and not for his own benefit. My question is, why is self-realization so difficult?
M. Laitman: Because it goes against nature. That's it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (56:33) Can we please scrutinize the degree of the intermediate half-innocent, half-guilty? Can we measure, feel that state? How much you have left to do if you're there?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: Is it revealed when we get there? All right. And what's the difference in the work? Does the person correct his commandments before he reached that half-and-half state? Before or after?
M. Laitman: Before how?
Student: He corrects one commandment after the other until he reaches some kind of, well, the halfway point, and then he has one more commandment, or maybe…
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: What is that one commandment?
M. Laitman: The commandment of love.
Student: What's the work before that? If only then he can perform that final, most important commandment. What is the work he does before that? He doesn't perform commandments yet. He only prepares?
M. Laitman: These are commandments. Just with respect to that commandment, these are preparatory actions.
Student: The person is still in fog, right? So he just says, be careful until you reach it. He speaks as though a person knows where he is on the path.
M. Laitman: Perhaps.
Student: So does he know or doesn't he?
M. Laitman: It depends on the inner state of a person. That's it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:55) To incorporate with the friends, should I see their transgressions, sins, mistakes? Is that a condition for incorporation?
M. Laitman: Typically, yes.
Student: How does it help me see a friend's transgressions? How does it help me advance?
M. Laitman: Otherwise, how will you be together with him?
Student: So all the transgressions, sins, mistakes, I need to scrutinize? Or maybe not. Or his rather, the friend’s?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (59:44) I wanted to ask about that act of judging the world to the scale of merit. When you see all sorts of flaws in the world, the acts by which you manage to sentence it to the side of merit, should that happen on the level of the will, or the intentions?
M. Laitman: I don't get it. An action with the intention is an action in the desire.
Student: Sentencing the world to the scale of merit, do you agree with what you see in the world then?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, what does it mean to sentence it to the side of merit? Because you see flaws and you don't agree with them. You condemn the world. What does it mean to judge the world to the side of merit?
M. Laitman: I judge the world to the scale of merit because ultimately I see that all those things come for correction.
Student: Your will disagrees, or does it agree?
M. Laitman: My desire is partial.
Student: So how does it sentence to the side of merit if it disagrees?
M. Laitman: Because I can't see, I can't feel, I can't decide, I can't judge.
Student: So that's my question exactly. If the will disagrees, how are you sentencing to the side of merit?
M. Laitman: I believe the sages who determine it this way. That a person must decide that the whole world is in a scale of merit.
Student: In those places where your desire agrees, your will agrees, there you have no work to do? In those places where your will accepts what it sees, there's no work to be done?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So all of your work is in those places where the will disagrees?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And when you manage to sentence to the side of merit, do you make it so that next time it will agree, it will start agreeing gradually?
M. Laitman: Yes, gradually.
Student: And this is a person managing to see the Creator behind the world events?
M. Laitman: Yes. No questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:53) The question is, according to the merits a person acquires, to that same degree, does the Creator open the transgressions up to him?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And so the transgressions are meant to magnify the next, the coming merits?
M. Laitman: In a way, yes.
Student: Now, a person who reaches the state of the intermediate, he has merits, and then the Creator opens up his transgressions before him, he shows him that he's not corrected. Previously you said that there's sin and there's transgression. Now, if I understand correctly, a transgression is something that he has an opportunity to correct, and a sin is a place where he missed something?
M. Laitman: More or less. Okay, next.
Student: So, with a transgression it's clear that he can correct it, fine. How should a person relate to a sin? He discovers, after having acquired some merits, he discovers some crime, iniquity. What is the right way to relate to a sin?
M. Laitman: What is the best way to relate to a sin? To try to look for a way to correct it.
Student: By what means can he correct the sin, because if he saw something that's forbidden, a prohibition, and he transgressed, violated, he saw something that isn't his and he took it, let's say, for example. How can it be corrected? He took it already. He didn't pass the package on. It's not his package. He took it, he used it, he enjoyed it. How can you correct that?
M. Laitman: I can say that about anything in the world.
Student: The correction for this is, is that him being more aware now that he's corrupted, and he needs the Creator more, is it something like that?
M. Laitman: That's clear, that's clear. Yes, let's think this way for now.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:31) You said to shut up and continue, that there is a state that's like that, and to silence the thoughts.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:55) When a person reaches the one commandment, he judges the whole world to the side of merit. So, the whole world is vessels of reception, they all become vessels of bestowal?
M. Laitman: No, only relative to what is revealed to him.
Student: Relative to what's revealed to him, thank you.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:06:26) Until he comes to perform that one commandment of love, the quality of love does not develop in the person?
M. Laitman: How?
Student: Because we say we need to engage in love of friends, love of others, that's a springboard.
M. Laitman: Yes, but it's not talking about the commandment of love or its light coming from above.
Student: So, what are the preparations that are working the Ten in the group? How does all that relate to the quality of love, let's put it this way?
M. Laitman: All of our preparations and incorporating between us, connecting between us, coming closer between us, and inside of that, we will reach to touch the quality, the commandment of love.
Student: What do we prepare for that contact?
M. Laitman: We come, we prepare the vessels that can feel the other.
Student: And it sounds that up to that single, that one commandment, it's all technical, you know, you need to organize how you look at things, how you perceive things, all sorts of agreements, conditions a person needs to meet, and then you reach love, which is actually the main thing in terms of the correction.
M. Laitman: You can say it this way, that it's revealed in this way. Okay. What are we doing next?
Question (Turkiye 2): (01:08:40) How can a person sentence himself to the side of merit? What causes the change that brings about this sentencing?
M. Laitman: The fact that he does not live inside his vessels, inside his desire, but rather he pulls and he draws, he clothes in the desire of another, of the group, of the Ten.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:09:30) Rav, the part of it again, the part of it is corrected from the top down first, the purest vessels. So if the Sefira of Hochma is corrected, then it means that there's reflected light on the degree of Hochma and direct light on the degree of Yesod. Is that called sight?
M. Laitman: No, that's not exactly like that. We'll learn about it.
Student: And can we say that reflected light is the intention and direct light is the desire, opposite the desire?
M. Laitman: No, no, we'll talk about it. It's completely something that needs to be further explained.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:10:35) Sometimes, sins that become transgressions, or mistakes rather, that's the revelation of the face in repentance from fear. Does that give contentment to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Of course, from each and every action, even the smallest, there is contentment to the Creator.
Student: And because of that it's called the revelation of the face?
M. Laitman: You can say it, yes. Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:24) Regarding this sentencing, if he sentences to the side of merit, then clearly he's reached the degree of love, it’s clear. But if he sentences to the side of demerit, let's say, guilt, does he need to start over again? Does he recognize that he did something wrong and he demands a correction for that?
M. Laitman: This is the reason he's with his corrupt desires and he wishes to correct them.
Student: But he sentenced it already, so he needs to again reach that point of choice. He needs to make the sentencing, right? The sentence.
M. Laitman: Maybe.
Student: So, when we say that he’s sentenced that sounds final.
M. Laitman: No, not final.
Student: So he needs to sentence again, every time to the side of merit and also... Right, so there's no end to it. It's always...
M. Laitman: There's no end. There is no end.
Student: Right, so you could ask, what is the end of correction? Is it not there? Is it still far off?
M. Laitman: We'll learn about it. We'll learn, we'll reveal, we'll see, we'll attain.
Reader: Let's continue to the next part of the lesson, and before that, let's sing a song.
Song: (01:13:11)